On Sunday morning, September 9, 1973, I asked Jesus Christ to forgive my sins and become my Savior and Lord. But when I finished praying, nothing happened. I saw no lights, I felt no weight lift from my shoulders. My first thought was, “Is that all there is to it?” And my intellectual questions about God didn’t evaporate. I still wondered about creation and science, world religions, why God allows evil and suffering. And so I doubted for many months whether my salvation and faith were real.

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When Ronald Reagan was running for Governor of California, a woman confronted him by his car one day and berated him severely. Finally she said, “I wouldn’t vote for you if you were St. Peter.” He smiled and replied, “No problem. If I were St. Peter, you wouldn’t be living in my district.”

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Remember the Y2K scare? One problem created by the turn of the millennium was very real. Perhaps you’ve been to a cemetery and noticed the headstones already in place for the spouse of the deceased, with the birth year followed by 19–. What’s now to be done? Some monument companies created epoxies to fill in the numbers, but without much luck. It was a Y2K problem etched in stone.

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At one time Martin Luther thought the Pope was the Antichrist, and expected Jesus’ return during his lifetime. Christopher Columbus thought the world would end in 1656, and that his explorations would lead a Christian army in the final crusade to convert the world. Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, predicted the “rapture” in 1910 and the end of the world in 1914.

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Someone asked a wise older pastor his view of the “end times.” He smiled and said, “The Lord put me on the preparation committee, not the planning committee.” He spoke for us all. We cannot control how the Lord chooses to end history. Our theories about the future are just that. The word of God is too practical to focus extensively on an issue which possesses no pragmatic value for our lives. If I could prove a particular theory of the end times to you, would such knowledge change your life today?

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